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Certified/Physician Acupuncturist
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Licensed Acupuncturist
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Certified physician or dentist acupuncturists
(CAc) with 300 hours of training |
Licensed acupuncturists (LAc) with an
average
of 2,700 hours of master’s-level training |
Training which is often comprised of
home study
and video-taped lectures |
Master’s level,
on-site training at a nationally
accredited school or college of acupuncture |
Minimal clinical experience in acupuncture
or no
actual patient treatments before certification |
Hundreds of hours of clinical experience
and at
least 250 actual patient treatments before
licensure |
| Not required to complete the national
certification examination to prove competency in acupuncture |
Required to pass the national certification
exam
in acupuncture in order to become licensed |
| Not required to regularly complete continuing
education courses |
Required to do regular continuing education
to
maintain national certification |
| Only about 1,000 practitioners in New
York (as of 5/24/00). Few actually practice acupuncture. |
More than 2,300 LAcs, who can provide
more
patient access to quality acupuncture care |
New York State allows physicians
and dentists to practice acupuncture with only
300 hours of training. This is a relic of 1974, when little was known about
acupuncture practice and education. Thirty years later, minimum, entry-level
standards of competence for acupuncture have evolved, producing fully-trained,
effective acupuncturists. Why haven’t educational standards for
physicians and
dentists been updated to reflect current requirements? And why would anyone
want to extend the same inadequate, outdated 300-hour requirement to other
health professionals? If someone, anyone, wishes to practice acupuncture or any
other form of healthcare, they should be properly trained and prove their
competency before treating the public. Acupuncturists could not hope to practice
podiatry or chiropractic with 300 hours of training and no standards of
competency. Why would the reverse be different?
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Oppose Podiatric Acupuncture
Certification Bill: A.04557 and S.02759 and the
Chiropractic Acupuncture Certification Bill: A.00789 and S.00314
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Acupuncture Society of New
York • 914.923.0632 • www.asny.org
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